'How can one work alone ?' I would say sorrowfully to myself; but after a time the emptiness of my life and dissatisfaction with my surroundings brought back the old thoughts.
I remembered the dear old rectory life, where every one was in earnest, and contrasted it with the trifling pursuits that my aunt and cousin called duties.

My present existence seemed to shut me in like prison bars.

Only to be free, to choose my own life! And then came emancipation in the shape of hard hospital work, when health and spirits returned to me; when, under the stimulus of useful employment and constant exercise of body and mind, I slept better, fretted less, and looked less mournfully out on the world.

Uncle Max was right when he said a year at St.Thomas's would save me.
By and by the idea dawned upon me that I might still carry out my plan; there were poor people at Heathfield, where Uncle Max's parish was.

What should hinder me from living there under Uncle Max's wing and trying to combine the two lives, as Charlie wished?
I was young, full of activity.